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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Mummies Of Guanajuato

The Mummies of Guanajuato are a number of naturally mummified bodies interred during a cholera outbreak around Guanajuato, Mexico in 1833. These mummies were discovered in a cemetery located in Guanajuato, which has made the city one of the biggest tourist attractions in Mexico. All of these mummies were disinterred between 1865 and 1958, when the law required relatives to pay a tax in order to keep the bodies in the cemetery. If the relatives could not pay this tax, they would lose the right to the burial place, and the dead bodies were disinterred. Ninety percent of the bodies in the cemetery were disinterred because their relatives did not pay the tax. However, only 2% of them were naturally mummified. The mummified bodies were stored in a building and in the 1900s the mummies began attracting tourists. Cemetery workers began charging people a few pesos to enter the building where bones and mummies were stored. Because of the large tourist appeal, this place was turned into a museum called El Museo De Las Momias, The Mummies' Museum. A law prohibiting the disinterring of more mummies was passed in 1958, but this museum still exhibits the original mummies.